60 ways to spend fewer tokens
The 22 Beginner tips are free to read. The 38 advanced tactics unlock with Pro — plus a fresh tip in your inbox every morning.
Ask for the Patch, Not the Whole File
When editing an existing file, tell the assistant to return only the changed lines as a diff or snippet instead of regenerating the entire file.
Run /clear Between Tasks in Claude Code Instead of Letting Context Pile Up
Claude Code resends the whole conversation every turn. Finishing one task and starting an unrelated one in the same thread means you keep paying for stale tool output and dead files.
Add a .cursorignore So Cursor Stops Indexing Your node_modules
Cursor's @codebase and automatic context can pull in build artifacts, lockfiles, and vendored dependencies. A .cursorignore file keeps that noise out of every prompt.
Scope Copilot Chat With #file Instead of @workspace
@workspace tells Copilot to search your entire repo and stuff retrieved snippets into the prompt. For targeted work, naming specific files with #file is leaner and usually more accurate.
Use Inline Completion for Trivial Edits, Save Chat for Reasoning
Route boilerplate and one-liners through tab-style inline completion instead of opening a chat panel, which drags in your whole conversation and attached files.
Turn Off Auto Codebase Context When You Don't Need It
Features like 'codebase' auto-retrieval and automatic open-file context silently attach extra tokens to every message. Switch them off for narrow tasks and attach context explicitly.
Pipe Logs Through head/grep Before Pasting Them Into an Assistant
A 4,000-line stack trace or verbose build log is mostly repetition the model doesn't need. Extract the signal first; pasting the whole thing is the single most wasteful coding-assistant habit.
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